Gap Year in Ghost Town

by Michael Pryor

  ‘He wanted to know all about it, but we didn’t get far.’

  ‘He’ll be keen to get my take on it. Who do you report to?’

  ‘Report? No one. Oh, I have contacts for anything that goes utterly pear-shaped, but Company field agents are pretty much solo operatives. We meet once a year, but that’s usually for a pep talk, a state-of-play sort of thing. Even trainees attend.’

  ‘What, you rally at the old clubhouse, swap stories about the ghosts you’ve slaughtered?’

  ‘There’s some of that,’ she admitted. ‘We have a lot of older men in the Company. They seem to find me a novelty. Sometimes they even let me talk.’

  I could see them clustering around, trying to impress her with their deeds, letting her get a word in now and then as they tried to outdo each other.

  Males. Sometimes I feel embarrassed at being on the same team.

  ‘Dad keeps meticulous records of our encounters,’ I told her. ‘They add to the family archive.’

  ‘So you’ve got a database of Melbourne ghost encounters going back how far?’

  ‘Just after the Second World War. Late forties. And we’ve got family stuff that goes back further.’

  ‘Brilliant.’

  ‘But calling it a database would be a bit of a stretch.’

  ‘Can I see it?’

  ‘Commercial in confidence.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re a competitor, aren’t you? A rival firm?’ I crossed my arms. ‘Sorry, that sort of stuff is valuable intellectual property. The Coke people wouldn’t just let the Pepsi people see their factory workings, would they?’

  ‘They would if they were combining forces.’

  Dad came back then, and I wasn’t sure if it was good timing or bad. ‘Dad, Rani wants me to let her come ghost hunting with me. Can I? Can I, please? I promise to be good.’

  ‘I apologise,’ Dad said to Rani. ‘He gets like this sometimes.’

  ‘I’ve noticed, Mr Marin,’ she replied.

  ‘Leon.’

  ‘He is useful, though, Leon,’ she said.

  ‘Useful,’ I said to no one in particular. ‘Such praise. All my life I dreamed of being useful, and I’ve finally got there. It looks like I can retire now.’

  ‘He can be,’ Dad said to Rani. ‘When he’s at his best.’

  ‘I’m hoping he can show me the Marin way of dealing with ghosts,’ Rani said. ‘I’m interested in alternatives to the way the Company taught me.’

  ‘We can help each other, Dad,’ I pointed out. ‘I can show her the Marin approach, and she can teach me swording, maybe.’

  ‘I think I need to teach you something more important than that,’ Rani said evenly.

  ‘Not swording? What about knife work? I can see myself as a dagger kinda guy.’

  ‘Combat preparation. Tactics. Reconnaissance. How to approach an enemy. Patrol formations. Deployment of forces.’

  I opened and closed my mouth a few times. ‘Seriously?’

  ‘If I’m going to patrol with someone, I prefer that they can manage themselves well. Judging by your last encounter, you have much to learn. Even if you work alone, a more systematic technique would help.’

  I looked at Dad. ‘She’s right, Anton,’ he said. ‘We Marins have often been slipshod in this area.’

  Rani tapped the table, drawing my attention. ‘In the Company, we learn how to position ourselves, the best ways to scope out potential sites, and how to use natural obstacles to our advantage.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘Instead of using them as tripping hazards.’

  I thought it over. ‘Could be helpful, I suppose.’

  ‘It’s all about being efficient. A little preparation goes a long way.’

  ‘Anton,’ Dad said. ‘It’s a generous offer.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Okay, okay, okay. We’ve got a deal.’

  Rani held out a hand. We shook.

  ‘Excellent,’ Dad said. He took up his pen and notepad again. ‘Now, would you care to report about the Rogue? Rani didn’t have time to tell me the details.’

  We described the events of last night. It was a pretty good double-handed rundown, if I say so myself.

  Dad kept scribbling for a while after we’d finished. I didn’t say anything, I didn’t want to distract him, and Rani picked up the cue and waited patiently as well.

  Finally, Dad looked up. ‘My father only encountered two Rogues in his entire time as a ghost hunter. Your Aunt Tanja, only one. Both hunters were mature, experienced, when they ran into them – and they barely survived.’

  ‘Teamwork beats solo performance here,’ I said. ‘Rani and I managed all right.’

  ‘I’m sure I could have handled it alone,’ Rani said.

  ‘True, by the Rani MultiSlice approach, approved by the Company of the Lifeless.’

  ‘While the Anton Warm and Cuddly approach would have resulted in you being torn to pieces.’

  I looked at her solemnly. ‘Together, we are much stronger than the sum of our parts.’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t be so daft.’

  Dad scratched his chin with his pen. ‘And you had no rush of memories when the Rogue was discorporated?’

  Dad loves a fancy word now and then. Rani and I looked at each other. ‘No,’ we both said at once.

  ‘I didn’t expect so. The available literature suggests that Rogues have abandoned their origins so completely that they have none left when they depart.’

  ‘Rogues,’ I said in my best voiceover voice. ‘So much more than just a ghost.’

  ‘Rani,’ Dad said, ‘if you truly wish to understand another way to deal with ghosts, I’d be happy for you to go with Anton. And not just because you would protect him. Sorry, Anton.’

  ‘Hey, I’m confident in my masculinity. I don’t mind if I’m protected by a girl. Not torn to pieces beats torn to pieces, any day.’

  ‘Anton said you have records of ghost encounters,’ Rani said. ‘May I look at them? I might be able to remember some of my own to add to yours. Cross-correlation could be useful.’

  Dad’s eyes lit up. ‘By all means!’

  So much for protecting family secrets.

  The shop bell rang. ‘I’ll get it.’ I hurried to the front room to find Bec there, red-faced from riding her bike through the chilly day.

  ‘Right,’ she said when she saw me. ‘Try this on for size. What’s the only bone in the human body that’s not attached to another bone?’

  ‘You’ve got me.’

  ‘The hyoid bone. It’s in your neck.’

  ‘Fascinating, but that’s not what you’ve come here for.’

  ‘I’ve come to see your dad about digitising,’ she said brightly.

  CHAPTER 9

  Later that day, partly dazed by Bec’s explanation of the benefits of digitising, Dad gave me Grender’s number. ‘Get him around here,’ he said. ‘I want to find out if he knew he was sending you to a Rogue.’

  Dad should have accepted early on that he was outmatched, but he kept on arguing with Bec before he surrendered. It was a brave but doomed effort. Throughout the morning, I dropped in to see them finger pointing, sketching diagrams on butcher’s paper, examining the drawers of file cards, discussing tagging systems and metadata, and I quickly dropped out again to work on my nice, simple inventory spreadsheet.

  Wisely, Rani spent most of her time browsing Dad’s ghost-hunting library.

  Just before lunchtime, I sidled into the secret room. Bec waved to me. ‘This is going to take time. Books, reports, newspaper and magazine cuttings, personal papers, journals…So much to organise. I could really use some help from someone who’s an expert in information management.’

  Dad shook his head. ‘I don’t like the idea of letting anyone else know about our work. I’m having enough trouble as it is with you three.’

  ‘You’d have to surgically remove his secrecy gland,’ I said. ‘He’s breaking a lifetime habit just sharing this much.’

  ‘Okay.’ Bec tapped he
r eye, which made Rani jump. ‘Anyway, I can make a start on cataloguing the books and arranging them properly. Then you’ll be able to search for contents. You’ll need to help, Leon, with tagging the actual contents.’

  ‘I can do that.’

  ‘Good,’ Bec said. ‘As for the reports, it’s going to take ages to key them all in.’

  ‘Quicker would be to scan in all the cards,’ I said, ‘tagging them as we go. If we all do this in shifts, we could get it done before the end of the universe.’

  ‘Why don’t we run multiple scanners?’ Rani suggested. ‘That’d save time.’

  Bec stared, open-mouthed. ‘I should have thought of that.’ Dad chuckled. ‘A fine – what do you call it, Rebecca? – process improvement?’

  ‘Still,’ Bec said. ‘It’d be good to have someone dedicated to scanning one hundred per cent.’

  ‘Take card, put card on scanner, scan, next,’ I said. ‘A monkey could do that.’

  ‘A trained monkey,’ Bec said.

  ‘Why’s everyone looking at me?’ I said. ‘And why do I feel like eating a banana?’

  ‘No,’ Dad said, ‘we can share duties. Rebecca, can you buy the equipment? Let me know and I’ll give you my credit card.’

  ‘It’s carved out of a block of stone,’ I mock-whispered.

  Dad rolled his eyes like a teenager. What a guy. ‘Enough,’ he said. ‘I’m agreeing, no? As long as you don’t hurt any of the existing records, you can go ahead and digitise the records.’

  Bec and Rani high-fived.

  ‘You won’t regret this, Leon,’ Rani said. ‘And it might throw up some interesting data.’

  ‘Data,’ Dad said. ‘My beautiful records have become data.’

  ‘They were always data, Leon,’ Bec said gently, ‘you just didn’t know it.’

  ‘Ah, Anton, save me from this technological hell! Tell me, when is Grender coming in?’

  ‘He didn’t answer. I left a message.’

  ‘Strange. He’s usually asleep until noon. He would have woken when the telephone rang, surely?’

  I’d explained a million times to Dad about turning phones off, but he still thought all phones were landlines. I bet he imagined Grender had one of those old black candlestick phones with the earpiece on the end of a wire.

  ‘I’ll try him again,’ I said, but the phone actually rang as I was reaching for it.

  It was Grender, but it took me a while to realise it. His voice was a screech. ‘Anton? Good God, help me! You’ve gotta help me! A Rogue, it’s trying to get in. I’m holding it off, but—’

  The line went dead.

  ‘A Rogue?’ Rani was on her feet. ‘In the middle of the day?’

  ‘It’s not unknown,’ Dad said, ‘but it’s not a good sign. Lock up the shop, Anton, let’s go.’

  I shook my head. ‘Stay with Bec. Fill her in on Rogues and daylight manifestations.’

  Bec looked at all of us, one by one. ‘Shouldn’t we call the police?’

  ‘Grender’ll be all right,’ I said. ‘He won’t mess around with a Rogue. He’ll run if he has to.’

  ‘One of the first rules of ghost hunting, Rebecca,’ Dad said, ‘is not to involve the ordinary authorities.’

  ‘It never ends well.’ I grabbed my pack. ‘If there’s a real manifestation, civilians panic, and people get hurt. And, usually, it’s the ghost hunter who gets dragged in and has to try to explain things.’

  ‘In the past,’ Dad said, ‘we have had many ghost hunters charged or, worse, committed to psychiatric institutions.’

  ‘So, police are the last resort.’ I made for the door. ‘Rani? You’re coming?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Anton—’ Dad looked pained.

  ‘Rani will protect me, remember?’

  ‘We’ll be all right, Leon,’ Rani said. ‘Really.’

  I stepped onto High Street and looked for a taxi to flag down. Rani grabbed my arm. ‘I have a car.’

  Yes, she had a car. It was sleek, grey, low, deadly and extremely expensive, at a guess. ‘Aston Martin?’ I said when I read the badge. ‘Exactly how much is your stipend?’

  ‘The Company equips its people well. We catch more ghosts that way.’ She got in while I stared at the machine. It was so slick I wasn’t game to lean on it as I’d probably slide off into the gutter. She turned it on, ignited it, began the launch sequence, whatever the heck they do with these things, and the engine rumbled like a lazy leopard. ‘Get in.’

  The seats were probably made of unicorn leather, and mine moulded itself to my body in a way that would have been illegal in some countries.

  ‘The Company is hundreds of years old,’ Rani said as she pulled out into traffic. She tapped a panel overhead and it whirred open. A pair of sunglasses was lowered down on a spiderwork metal arm. She snapped them up, snapped them on, and pulled around a dithering Camry. ‘And it’s built up extensive property interests over that time. It hasn’t squandered its holdings.’

  ‘Nggggg,’ I said calmly as she cut through traffic like a hawk through a flock of pigeons. She didn’t do anything illegal, as far as I could tell. She simply made the most of every gap, every shortcut, every opportunity to advance.

  The tyres didn’t squeal once in the thirty-minute drive, but whether that was due to some super rubber science stuff or Rani’s superb driving, I have no idea.

  Grender lived in one of the shadier parts of East St Kilda. Not trees shady, but on-the-edges-of-the-law shady. It had the characteristic of many of the ghost spotters’ houses I had been to – plenty of exits.

  It was one of those 1930s brick Art Deco blocks of flats, two storeys, with three sets of stairs – handy exits, you see. A laneway ran alongside it and along the back for more of that ‘easy to slip out of when nasties come banging on the front door’ ambience that never features on real estate signs, but is much valued by people like Grender. All the windows, even on the second floor, had bars on them. The bars were serious, too, not decorative.

  The front door opened onto a foyer and it was meant to be one of those secure buzz-up arrangements, but the kayak propping it open put an end to that. I scanned the names above the buttons. ‘First floor.’

  Rani took the stairs two at a time, and I was close behind.

  I should have guessed that Grender’s flat would be the rearmost. The brick balcony looked over the vacant car park.

  The door was shut and, if I knew Grender’s ways, locked tight.

  ‘Let me kick it in,’ Rani breathed. ‘It’ll put anyone inside onto the back foot. You follow right behind but keep low. Look to the sides while I take point position.’

  I stared. The door looked solid enough to keep Grender feeling secure, and he set a really high bar in the personal security stakes.

  ‘How superhuman are you?’ I whispered back.

  ‘Not a lot,’ she said and shrugged again. ‘It’s hard to measure.’

  I’d been joking. She hadn’t been. She stepped up and banged a fist on the door.

  Nothing.

  I tried to ignore how much my palms were sweating. ‘Well, that’s all okay then. He probably stepped out for a bite to eat, or to buy some shoe polish or something.’

  ‘And he rang, terrified about a Rogue, just before that?’

  ‘Life moves on.’ I caught the sceptical look on her face. I’m no fool when it comes to expression catching. I won ‘Best Expression Catcher’ at my local club, three years in a row, and we were in a semi-pro league and all. ‘I can use my pendant to open it.’

  ‘Wait,’ she said. ‘Is there a back door?’

  We followed the balcony. As we rounded the corner we ran into a completely different scene. Rubbish bins outside the door were knocked over and crap was strewn everywhere. The small window next to the door was broken.

  My pendant started buzzing. Forget a trapped moth inside, this felt like a swarm of wasps doing a Zumba class.

  ‘This could be a normal mess,’ I said. ‘A fun party, a few friends, stu
ff happens.’

  Rani took three quick paces, knelt, frowned, straightened and drew her sword. ‘And the blood?’

  Then I heard it. A thin, high wail that the Marin family records describe as ‘keening’.

  Rani heard it too. ‘We really do have a presence here, in the middle of the day.’ She cocked her sword and advanced, glancing at me first. ‘When we’re done here, I want to compare notes on Rogues.’

  ‘When we’re done here, I hope I’m in a state to do some comparing.’

  Rani stopped and knelt again. Just over the threshold was a line of sand, blackened and melted in patches. ‘Barrier sand. Your Grender knew a thing or two about keeping ghosts away.’ I stared. ‘Never heard of it.’

  ‘It’s hard to come by, and unreliable, but it has its uses. It looks as if the Rogue eventually forced a way through it, though.’

  Rani stepped over the sand. I swallowed and let her get ahead, to avoid any backswing from her sword.

  We edged through the tiny laundry, then along a hallway, getting closer to the eerie noise.

  ‘Stop it,’ Rani whispered.

  ‘Stop what?’

  ‘You’re whistling again.’

  ‘Sorry.’ I stopped.

  The living room was a disaster zone. Furniture was tipped over, the carpet ripped up, the venetian blinds torn from the walls, the light-fittings dangling. A bookshelf had toppled, scattering books all over the floor. I had time to notice a scatter of documents, but then all my attention went to where Grender’s corpse was laid out in the middle of the room, while a Rogue hovered over it.

  One part of me was cool and analytical, wondering why the Rogue hadn’t gone in the half hour it took us to get here. Most of me, though, was questioning my gap year commitment and pointing out the stupidity of continuing with it.

  I’d never say I was best buddies with Grender, but he was a real person I’d known and talked to and now there he was, his throat neatly slit and a look of horror on his face. It made my knees want to give up and admit this load-bearing was just too much work. My stomach wasn’t in good shape, either.

  The Rogue was female, and modern. She had dark hair and wore a dark skirt and jacket over a white blouse – generic business wear. She looked as if she had been in her late thirties, early forties.